http://www.infowars.com/argentinas-regime-leader-kirchner-freezes-food-prices-pushes-country-toward-food-shortages-and-riots/
Argentina’s regime leader freezes food prices, pushes country toward food shortages and riots
Mike AdamsNatural News
Feb 11, 2013
Feb 11, 2013
A few days ago, Argentina’s populist female president Cristina Kirchner ordered a price freeze on food products. This price freeze was levied against the largest food retailers in the country, and it is just the latest example of utterly insane economic policies made by populist national leaders who inevitably end up causing massive suffering and economic damage to the nations they claim to lead.
In case you’re not familiar with Kirchner, this woman is a mafia-style criminal, a populist political hustler who has, for years, fabricated economic data to claim Argentina has low inflation. (In truth, the inflation rate there is over 25%.) She has been caught using government-created money to pay off political bribes. She has been slapped on the wrist by the IMF for falsifying economic data, and now she is about to thrust her country into nationwide food shortages that may very well be followed by riots.
The people of Argentina deserve better than Kirchner. Argentinians are, by and large, extremely friendly and capable people, yet they have suffered under the most absurd dictatorial rulers for at least a generation, possibly longer. Kirchner is just the latest in a long line of thuggish betrayers of the people who elected her.
“Cristina Kirchner’s Argentina illustrates an alarming trend. Her government has expropriated major foreign investors, falsified statistics, destroyed central bank independence , used the nation’s currency reserves for political payoffs, and faces default,” writes Paul Roderick Gregory at Forbes.com
Welcome to the land of populist governments led by charismatic people who have no clue whatever how economies work. These national leaders are a disgrace to humanity, and nations like Argentina would be far better served if they through Kirchner in prison rather than listening to any more of her delusional economic demands.
For starters, the price freeze means that food importers will halt most imports because they would lose money by selling their food at the prices ordered by the government. So the price freeze results in immediate food shortages.
But people still need food, obviously, so they begin to seek out black market sources of food sold at actual market prices. This causes a mass diversion of purchasing behavior away from the grocery stores to “food smugglers” who inevitably create complex systems of corruption and criminality in order to deliver the products that people want.
Think of this as “food prohibition.” Any time a government enacts prohibition of something the people really want, it inevitably creates a criminal black market, complete with payoffs and violence. The Kirchner regime can then point to these black market operations and blame them for all the results of Kirchner’s own failed economic policies. Whatever goes wrong inArgentina, she will blame it on “the black market gangs” that have defied her insane government dictates. (If this sounds familiar, it’s because in the USA, Obama blames all his failures on “terrorists.”)
Insane tyrants seek power at any cost
With tyrants like Kirchner, it’s always about staying in power at any cost to society. No matter how many people must suffer, starve or be imprisoned, Kirchner is going to shore up her own power, even if it means destroying the very country she claims to be serving.
Right now, she’s also attacking Argentina’s largest newspaper conglomerate, Grupo Clarin SA, by outlawing grocery store advertising in the newspapers! This move is wholly designed to bankrupt the newspaper as punishment for the publishing of accurate inflation numbers that Kirchner has now cursed upon Argentina.
And this is how it goes, you see: Much like as we see with Obama in the USA, Kirchner is willing to destroy her own nation’s economy as long as she terminates a few political opponents along the way. With tyrants like Kirchner — and everyone else who seeks total domination over the population — it’s an endless game of destruction, and much like in the USA,everybody pays the price for the arrogance and shamelessness of the top political leader.
Argentina today, America tomorrow
If you’re wondering what all this has to do with you, listen up: Argentina is smaller reflection of what’s happening on a much larger scale globally. Everywhere around the world, governments are lying to the People about unemployment numbers, inflation numbers and national debts. Just like in Argentina, top political leaders routinely use their power to crush their political opponents, no matter what the cost to society. And just like with Kirchner, political tyrants everywhere will do absolutely anything to stay in power, even if it means announcing government mandates to be enforced at gunpoint.
Kirchner, like many other dictatorial tyrants throughout history, is an egomaniacal murdering criminal who is best dealt with through the use of a short rope and a tall tree. The best message Kirchner could possibly announce to her countrymen at this point would be the message that is broadcast by having a corrupt, criminal regime ex-tyrant swinging in the breeze without a pulse. Only then will the hard-working people of Argentina get what they truly deserve: SOMEONE ELSE other than Kirchner at the helm.
Let it be known that the day the Kirchner regime is removed from power — and this evil woman is marched through the streets to face the people whose lives she has ruined — will be a day of great celebration for liberty and justice around the world. To all those in Argentina who are right now fighting against the criminal regime of Kirchner, let it be known that there are many of us here in the USA who are praying and cheering for your victory against tyranny.
May you achieve victory and rid yourself of the putrid parasite known as Kirchner.
and....
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-09/after-freezing-prices-argentina-bans-all-advertising
Days After Freezing Prices, Argentina Bans All Advertising
"We are from the government and we are here to help you"
- Anonymous government worker
A week after Argentina resorted to every failing authoritarian government's last ditch measure to (briefly) control inflation before runaway prices flood the nation and result in political and social upheaval, namely freezing retail prices - a decision which never has a happy ending, the country is pressing on through the rabbit hole and in the latest stunner of a government decree (which like Venezuela yesterday is merely a harbinger of what is coming everywhere else), has banned advertising in the Argentina's newspapers in an attempt to weaken what's left of a private, independent media, and to punish those who don't comply with the government's propaganda.
Supermarkets and electronics retailers say Argentina's government has ordered them to stop advertising in the country's top newspapers, in a bid to weaken independent media companies as President Cristina Kirchner turns to increasingly unorthodox policies to prevent inflation from derailing an ailing economy.The order, confirmed by retailers and newspapers but denied by government officials, comes after retail executives say price-control czar Guillermo Moreno pressured them earlier this week to agree to freeze prices for two months. Executives say Mr. Moreno then told them to pull all newspaper sales ads in hopes this would somehow curb inflation. "This was an imposition, not a request. He simply decided that nobody should publish any ads. It's not sustainable and will be hard to comply with," said one retail-sector executive.
And yes, a light bulb just went on over the president's head when he read the word "price-control czar."Why is Argentina resorting to this dictatorial measure? Simple - to stifle the independent press for one simple reason - "misreporting" inflation, or at least reporting inflation numbers which are orders of magnitude higher than the official government numbers.Mrs. Kirchner played down inflation for years, refusing even to say the word in public. But with economists estimating annual inflation at around 26%, she has been calling on consumers to prevent companies from raising prices. A sluggish economy and Mrs. Kirchner's confrontational political style have also taken a toll on her popularity.The Buenos Aires Newspaper Editors Association said the order was a reprisal against those who publish independent inflation estimates. "This is another display of how far authoritarianism can go in a context that is dominated by discretional policies and bullying," the group said in a harshly worded newspaper ad Friday.
The controversy comes as Mrs. Kirchner attempts to implement a three-year-old media law that would overhaul Argentina's media industry and dismantle media giant Grupo Clarín SA, which publishes Argentina's bestselling newspaper, Clarín, and runs a profitable cable-TV and Internet network."This aims to inflict economic damage on all independent media companies," Clarín spokesman Martin Etchevers said. "On the one hand, it's another attempt to weaken media that don't depend on government money. On the other, it's an attempt to keep people in the dark about inflation."Two birds with one dictatorial decree stone. However, while the motive is quite clear it shows the danger of having a truly independent media, and one which is not aligned with the government's propaganda:report the truth and we will starve you by banning all your advertising. Ad revenues in the US must be soaring...
Mrs. Kirchner accuses Clarín of using its sway to undermine her government. Clarín officials say the government started targeting it in 2007, when it began reporting that the government was underestimating inflation.
Just as notably, with the witch hunt against anyone whose inflation numbers differ from the government's official lies, it is likely that the organizers of the Argentinian equivalent of the Billion Dollar Price project would get the death penalty.
In 2011, the government started fining economists for publishing their own inflation estimates. To protect them, a group of opposition legislators began publishing the economists' monthly inflation estimates anonymously.
What is most ironic is that it is the same US-based IMF who recently punished Argentina for its inflationary misreporting.
The International Monetary Fund has weighed in on the matter and recently censured Argentina over questions around its economic data. The IMF warned that it could eventually expel Argentina from the organization if the matter isn't resolved.
But perhaps Argentina is not massaging its inflation numbers - perhaps it is merely doing what the US and every other IMF member nation does: ignore those prices which are soaring, and hedonically adjust everything else far lower, to give the general public the impression that the horsemeat lasagna which went up in price... it didn't really go up in price.
At the end of the day, this like every other idiotic measure taken by a government in its last throes is just to preserve power one more month, or week, or day:
Gabriel Gómez, an economist at the research firm Consultora Ledesma, said the government is imposing short-term price controls and advertising limits ahead of a key mid-term election in October.
"The only thing the government wants now is to decelerate inflation before October," he said. "Everyone knows that price controls are counterproductive in the long-run, so that's the only way to understand the logic behind this."Top government officials have called on Mrs. Kirchner to amend the constitution so she can seek re-election in 2015. To do so, her coalition would need to win more congressional seats in October.
Or, as is the case everywhere: when the government's self preservation is the bottom line, screw the people. Alas, that is the case now in every "developed world" nation, whose status quo is clinging on to dear life as the legacy socioeconomic and financial system implodes.
Keep an eye on just how far Kirchner will go to keep her place in power - that will be a useful indicator of what is coming to every banana republic next, and quite soon.
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